Nightmare Hunters
by The Exile
Summary: A grown-up Claris and Elliot, now married and at University, form a Nightmaren-hunting team with Will and Helen. Their biggest case yet arrives when they meet visiting academics, two experts in psychic phenomena from the University of Threed!
1. Chapter 1

Nightmare Hunters

_((Author's notes: _

_- I like calling Ness and Lucas by their more poncy names, its fun._

_- I realise there are tons of reasons why Lucas and Ness couldn't be alive at the same time and place. Its because of time travel. Yes. _

_- I suspect Will/Helen and Claris/Elliot couldn't be alive at the same time and place either. Its also because of time travel. I don't care that there's no time travel in NiGHTs. No, seriously, its an AU world, its allowed to not work._

_- I apologise if I've got anyone's proportional age wrong or made the timeline in any other way unfeasible.))_

* * *

"Imagine, if you will, a figure flying gracefully through the air. A carefree, playful personality, dressed like a jester, performing acrobatic loops in the sky."

"Like a clown?"

"No, not a clown. Clowns are terrifying. Everyone's scared of clowns." she said, possibly a little more brusquely than she would have liked, as the mental image was totally ruining the mood of her presentation, "The figure has a friendly face. You can trust him not to lead you into a nightmare. You can fly up into the sky with him – you can think of it as male or female, I find it best to imagine it as androgynous and child-like, its not there to be attractive, that'll only distract you – and out of your body, up into the world of sleep. When the jester flies, he doesn't doesn't try and fight against the wind currents, neither does he blindly surrender to falling. He knows what kind of dream he wants to go to. You can do that, too – you're not restrained by your physical shell in your dreams, your imagination is limitless, so anything can happen."

Another hand went up.

"Mrs. Sinclair... I'm Professor Johannes Franklin from the University of Eagleland."

Johannes was a young-looking man with dark hair that looked like he had expended a great deal of effort trying to comb it and utterly failed. Like Elliot, he had the look of an athlete. Elliot was much taller and more broad-shouldered, though, a basketball player's physique rather than a baseball player, and he had spiky blue hair.

"The Professor of Paranormal Studies?"

"I'm glad someone here's heard of me." he said, "I didn't think I had a following as far out as Twin Seeds!"

"Are you joking? You're Ness! You're like the star every baseball player in Twin Seeds Uni aspires to be!" interjected Elliot. A few members of the audience laughed nervously. Johannes broke out into a warm smile. Claris sighed. Elliot was never this outspoken when it came to actually doing his fair share of answering questions or making presentations at conferences. He claimed to get nervous in front of crowds. Claris was the one who used to have nightmares about stage fright as a child and now she was a respected academic and a member of the University choir! What kind of a nickname was 'Ness' anyway? Was it supposed to sound like a contraction of Johannes? Elliot's nickname was 'Ike' – the reason for which was even more of a mystery to Claris.

"Well, I'm not here today to talk about baseball. I specialise in psychic phenomena. What are your views on psychic phenomena related to sleep and dreaming? For instance, I've heard you speaking of lucid dreaming, shared dreams... "

"I have experienced lucid dreaming, yes, and I could explain to you all how to train the mind to be more likely to lucid dream. Its mostly an extension of the techniques I've been talking about already. I also occasionally have the same dreams as Elliot here."

She looked over at him and caught him blushing. Relationships was another topic that Elliot wasn't good at talking about. They had been married for almost a year now. It wasn't entirely true to say that their closeness was the reason they shared their dreams; it was actually the other way round. Since their experiences in Nightopia ten years ago, both linked to NiGHTs, both fighting for the future of Nightopia and the waking world, they had met increasingly often, at first by chance, then by design. They transferred into the same class at school the next year, then went to the same college. They found themselves drawn to the same course of study, although that was only natural, considering their experiences. Finally, they realised their relationship was serious and after a fairly long time dating - neither were the impulsive type - Elliot proposed to her. They had taken Claris' surname as Claris Booker just sounded like some kind of abandoned idea for a word processing package, while Elliot Sinclair sounded continental and stylish. The bond formed between them in Nightopia had linked them at a fundamental level of their being.

There were lots of things she didn't quite tell the truth about. Not to an open audience, anyway.

"However, I don't see either of these as anything unusual. People very close to each other can share many of the same thoughts and ideas. Its no different to twins finishing each other's sentences."

Claris noted that Johannes' companion flinched at those words and wondered if she had said something offensive. She hadn't recently noticed the younger man before now. He was quite handsome in an unassuming way, with his soft blonde hair and nervous expression. He looked frail, a little lost. There was something in his eyes that made Claris worry about him and want to protect him.

"As for lucid dreaming, we can all do this. Its just a matter of entering a deep enough sleep and using a few tricks to actively stay asleep. The main trouble is knowing you're in a dream without waking up."

"Have you ever experienced anything that you thought couldn't be explained by science?"

"Where human consciousness and thought is concerned, science is still shamefully underdeveloped. Psychology is a very primitive science compared to, say, physics. I'd be very surprised if science explains anything about dreams satisfactorily." she said, "But you mean psychic phenomena, such as astral travel, yes?"

"Or prophetic dreaming..."

"I can't say that I don't believe there's a mystical or spiritual aspect to dreaming. It certainly is an amazing thing." said Claris, noting that the younger man had left his seat and walked out of the room, "I've had many reports and personal accounts of such activities during my research and they're all fascinating. Personally I've never had such an experience and my research doesn't really focus on them all that much. My specialities are the science of sleep and practical techniques to help people sleep."

"I was just interested in your opinion..."

"If the idea helps you to enjoy your dreams and to have better dreams, that makes it useful. I don't think it has to have any mystical explanation, though. Once we find out exactly how it works, like any other part of dreaming, we can use the knowledge to benefit everyone who wants to have the same experiences and be able to control them, or who wants to stop having them, as the case may be." One of the conference organisers walked up to her, coughed and handed her a small folded-up note. She unfolded it and read it, then nodded, "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to cut this presentation short. Elliot will finish for you and you can ask him any questions you may have."

"Uh... does anyone else have any questions, then?" asked Elliot as he watched his wife and research partner leave. A few people raised their hands. Claris left him to it and walked, briskly but as unobtrusively as possible, out of the conference hall.

In the corridor, she saw the young man who sat at the same table as Johannes earlier. He was staring at his reflection in one of the ceiling-to-floor mirrors, seemingly lost in thought.

"Excuse me, there..." she began. He flinched, "Sorry to disturb you, I don't think I know your name."

"Luykas." he said, "Luykas von Tazmilly. I'm working with Johannes on some research."

"And how long have you been having the nightmares?"

"H... how did you know?"

"You look terrified of something, your eyes are really haunted, and you don't look like you've slept for several days, yet you haven't touched a drop of coffee and you haven't tried to get any work done, so you can't be a workaholic." she said, "I'm good at spotting these things. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions? Don't worry, I don't want any personal information off you. How long have you been having the nightmares?"

"F... fifteen years. But they've got worse, just lately."

"More vivid? Like they're more real?"

He nodded.

"Have you felt less... well, yourself, lately? Less inspired? Less courageous? Less pure?"

"Wh... what do you mean, less pure? What are you suggesting about me?"

"Okay, scrap that. Have you ever seen any of the following things in your nightmares – giant goldfish, multicoloured dragons with spikey tails, opera-singing space-hoppers with rabbit ears..."

"N... none of these things! Its my twin brother... ever since he died..."

"I'm sorry for your loss." she said, "And I'm sorry if I brought back any painful memories. I just needed to check something."

"Its okay. Its n... not like I don't think about him every single waking moment of my life anyway." he said, bowing his head, "He was like p... part of me. I was g... going to ask you for help dealing with the nightmares, once we could talk in private..."

"I promise I'll fit you in some time later on. I'm actually on my way to a meeting..."

Suddenly, she stopped. She heard somebody humming classical music. Another voice was talking excitedly.

"Oh, I must be later than I thought. They've come looking for me."

She waited for them to arrive – a tall, slim, graceful blonde-haired woman and a boy who looked around eighteen, with short-cropped blonde hair. Helen was as immaculately dressed as always in a white blouse with ruffles at the sleeves and hem and a denim skirt, her blonde hair tied back neatly – Claris was a little jealous of her sense of style, as well as the small fortune she obviously had. Will was dressed more modestly in brown shorts and a red T-shirt.

"Hi, Claris!" piped up Will, "We've found a really large... oh, there's someone listening." He looked at Luykas and broke off, disappointed.

"Its okay, I think he's the source of the reading." said Claris, "You were going to say reading, right? Not pizza?"

"You think Will would have found a really large pizza and not eaten it already?" Helen pointed out, "Claris, you say you've found the source?"

"Source of what? What really large reading?" asked Luykas, becoming increasingly flustered by all the attention suddenly directed at him.

"I'm sorry, we haven't introduced ourselves, have we?" said Helen, offering Luykas a hand, "I'm Helen, this is Will, I assume you've already met Claris and Elliot. We hunt Nightmaren. And there's a Nightmaren-possessed human somewhere in this building. A very strong one - at least a Second Class!"


	2. Chapter 2

"Where are you taking me?"

"Just to our office." said Elliott, "You'll be fine. We've done this plenty of times before. We just need to run a few checks. We think we know what the problem is."

"If we know where it is, we need to isolate it and fight it before its too late." added Will.

"Fight what?"

"Don't talk about it in public!" Helen complained.

Luykas ran after them down the corridor. Elliott punched the button for the elevator and they all climbed in. They headed for the third floor, which was dominated by the Psychology Department's research laboratories. He had never heard of a Psychology Department needing so much space and such advanced equipment outside Eagleland, where there was an abnormally high rate of psychic phenomena. They walked down a corridor until they reached a door that said 'Sleep Studies Room. Quiet Please!'. The room was fairly large, the lighting kept low, the walls sound-proofed. On one side of the room there were beds surrounded by computers and medical equipment, on the other was a desk covered in notes, a blackboard and several posters with graphs showing the findings from various experiments, mostly ECG readings at various REM stages.

"Am I going to have to be asleep for this?" asked Luykas.

"Not just you. All of us except myself. I need to stay out and watch the monitors and make sure nothing happens to your bodies while you're all asleep."

"What are you going to do, go into the dream with me?"

"If its a Nightmaren, there'll be some way of getting in and out via the Nightmaren's lair. Anyone who can travel through Nightopia can also use the back doors." said Claris, "We can't go into regular dreams. If there's no Nightmaren, we won't actually be able to get in."

"If you're worried about us invading your mind, you should worry more about what the Nightmaren are doing in there." said Will, "I'm sorry if this isn't making much sense to you but we don't have time to explain everything now. I'll tell you more as we're going along."

"I can't just fall asleep on demand. It takes me a long time to get to sleep at all. I tend to fight against it, these days, so I've conditioned myself not to need much." said Luykas.

"Nobody can sleep on demand. Don't try. We can make the environment so it's really difficult not to sleep." said Will.

"There's something you need to know." said Lucas, "Is this room secure against us being overheard?"

"We wouldn't be talking about Nightmaren if it wasn't. We're not all as bad as Will." said Helen.

"I experience some pretty strong psychic phenomena sometimes. If you try and get inside my unconscious mind, it won't be me who's in danger." said Luykas, "It can go badly if I lose control."

"We'll keep that in mind. I'll be awake if anything bad happens." Claris reassured him.

They set up the machinery, then four of them lay on the beds while Claris sat at a chair next to the monitors, a clipboard in her hand. The light grew dimmer and relaxing classical music started playing in the background. There was a projector somewhere in the room that was beaming patterns of soft, muted lights that swam around on the ceiling like digital fish. Luykas soon found himself hypnotised by them, preoccupied with following particular ones around and finding patterns in their movement. The bed was soft and comfortable but just firm enough that he felt securely held, and the linen smelled freshly cleaned. Despite his insistence that he wouldn't, he soon found himself drifting off to sleep.

* * *

A field of sunflowers.

The flowers were a vivid gold against a pastel blue sky and so tall that they reached far above Elliot's head. There was the feel of a childhood memory in the air, as though time hung motionless. Nothing stirred unless one of them brushed past a sunflower stalk and knocked down a petal. There was silence, no breeze, no bird calls. It was the kind of image that told Helen to be on guard. When it started out this good, if it was going to turn for the worse later on, it would end REALLY badly. It didn't quite feel like one of the innocent dreams. She felt as though she was being watched. It was beginning to annoy her, not being able to see where she was going in any direction or even see the sky clearly. Those gigantic floral sentinels dominated everything.

"Any signs so far?" whispered Will.

"Can't see a damn thing." Elliott called.

"Same here." said Helen, "There has to be something in here, though. We got in OK."

"Anyone sensing anything?" asked Will.

"Nothing." said Elliott. He wasn't that strong without Claris. One pair always got broken up. It was a real problem on missions. It was unsafe to go in without someone on the outside to watch them. They needed a fifth, someone who could sense Nightmaren but didn't have to be able to go in and didn't need to be paired.

"Something's not right. I can't tell what, though." said Helen.

"I think I hear something." Will put his hand to his lips and ducked down. Helen followed his example. They scrambled through the flower beds after him. Helen begun to hear it too, now; voices. At least three people. One was soft and sinister, one was menacing and commanding, one sounded younger and slightly broken, like a bad recording.

"I am impressed." said the commanding voice, "So far, everything is to my satisfaction. Don't you agree, Reala?"

As soon as they heard the Nightmaren's name spoken, they froze, then proceeded more carefully, trying not to make a sound. They recognised the first voice as Wizeman now, although they still had no clue whose voice the broken one was. A new Nightmaren?

"Of course." said the softer voice, "I would not bring you a poor candidate. I tested for stability issues myself several times."

"A dream is just a prototype before a prototype." said the wrong-sounding voice, "My situation gives me a unique chance to practice."

By now, they had found a small clearing hidden in the endless fields of sunflowers. In the middle of the clearing was a barrow, what looked like the entrance to a tomb. This was where the voices emanated from. Will climbed in first, the smallest and quietest, while Elliott guarded the entrance.

"If I decide that you are a suitable vessel for Lord Selph... your prototype, as well as His, shall have its release date." promised Wizeman.

"I also know the subject perfectly. I will not make a mistake projecting into his mind."

"And you are sure that this mortal is a good catalyst?"

"A powerful psychic, yet vulnerable and unstable." said the broken voice, "I want his mind, once it is over. He is a good replacement for what I was intended to be."

"Once it is over, there may not be the kind of world where humans could live."

"He would not be unchanged. Besides, that is what I want as payment."

"Then it is up to you to do your job while keeping him intact." said Wizeman, "Also, you will not address me so insubordinately. I am your Master. Lord Selph is older and more powerful than I, but this does not mean that you are. You are only his vessel."

"If you insist... Master." there was no tone of mocking, or of deference, or fear, or indeed anything at all beyond that sing-song child's voice with its eerie distortion.

"You will also obey all commands given to you by Reala. You will not take orders from the other Nightmaren but neither will you interrupt their work." said Wizeman, "Now, I would like a demonstration."

"Certainly, Master."

"Kill the intruders while you're at it."

Before any of them could react, there was a crackle of white noise and a static sensation behind Claris. From nowhere, as if walking into the space from an angle in a dimension they couldn't see, appeared a small boy. He looked like a younger Luykas, except that he had brown hair. He glanced at each of them in turn. The vacant, hollow-eyed expression on his face sent a chill down Helen's spine. He looked like one of the living dead. Then he walked past them as though they were of no import. As he walked, he flickered and almost broke up into static, as if he was having trouble staying in a solid shape. He radiated Nightmaren, something with claws and teeth lurking in the shadows of the darkest part of your mind, the panic lying in your brain even on the most tranquil day, except that he was something else as well. It wasn't just that he didn't belong in the dream. He just shouldn't be.

"Where's Luykas?" whispered Elliott.

"I thought he was with you!" said Will.

"Oh, Christ. Helen, tell me you've seen him... how did we manage to lose track of the dreamer?"

"It happens. We couldn't see anything. Sometimes dreamers don't even show up in person. Maybe he's just observing."

"We need to know for certain. We can't leave a dreamer unprotected in here. Helen, what the hell was that thing? It knows we're here! What's it going to do?"

"We don't have time to talk! Something big's..." began Will, but he was cut off by a loud scream that reverberated through the air. Suddenly, everything was on fire. The sunflowers were replacced by pillars of flame, the meadow by scorched earth, the smoke blackening the sky. Elliott and Helen were yelling and pointing upwards. High in the sky, clearly visible above the smoke and flames, was the strange boy. They saw him as a double image now, the two overlapping as they swam around.

Directly below him was Luykas, also a small boy. The screaming was coming from him. He clutched his head, trying to block out the sight, and the inferno spread out from where he stood, wreathed in fire. The fire was tearing the dream apart. They could tell straight away it wasn't intended to be part of the dream. This was where the Nightmare began.

Elliott felt the tell-tale tug on his Ideya, like someone was interfering with the core of who he was in a way he couldn't quite explain. He quickly snatched it back. _NiGHTs, please be around somewhere..._

Just then, there was a lurching sensation that woke him straight up. They all woke up at once, sitting bolt upright and sweating. Except Luykas. He lay in a foetal position on the bed, screaming, his face white.

A small fire had started in the middle of the room.


	3. Chapter 3

"So, what did NiGHTs say?" asked Will.

"He said we're fools for doing something like this in the middle of a heavily populated town." Claris told them.

"That good, huh?"

"I could teleport us all out in an emergency." said Johannes.

"You can teleport?"

"Well... I can only take four people at a time. And I would need a decent sized take-off and landing strip. I'd probably still make a mess of at least one wall, this room's just too small."

"No more trashing the research room." warned Helen. She was still making last-minute adjustments to the equipment. The REM counter made a whistling noise that rose and fell in pitch as she turned a dial on it, causing the graph to fluctuate.

"Can he protect us?" asked Will.

"Not forever, but he says he needs to investigate what's happening inside Luykas' subconscious. If he can sort it out, there'll be no more need to monitor him. If he doesn't, I get the impression the world's going to end or something."

"Good job I handed in my dissertation this afternoon." said Will.

"Claris and Elliot are better at working with NiGHTs than us, so I'll sit out this time." Helen told them, "Elliot is holding open the gate to Nightopia. When Luykas falls asleep, we follow him in, NiGHTs finds the portal to his dream and takes Elliot in. Its more complicated than usual, so the timing is going to be difficult, but Ness will try and shield our minds as best as possible."

Once Helen was done with the machines, they lay down on the beds and, with the help of the soothing classical music and patterns on the ceiling, they were soon asleep. The landscape of the dream was quite different this time around. Instead of the sunflower field, as peaceful and melancholy as a cemetery, they stood in a corridor of what looked like some kind of laboratory. The way that the gleaming white tiled walls had been cleaned and disinfected suggested that something unpleasant happened here, something that either needed to be hidden or at cleaned up after for hygiene's sake. The doors were thick, with round windows of reinforced glass. There were security cameras everywhere and, for some reason, unusually large waste paper bins. What unnerved Will most were the noises he kept hearing in the distance. They were almost definitely animal noises but he couldn't quite tell what kind of animal. It sounded like a mixture of both, the kind of noise a snake would make if it was also a chicken, or an orang-utan if it was also a bat. Tazmilly University must have a weird science department, he thought to himself.

Five minutes later, an elevator at the far end of the corridor went 'ding' and the door opened. With a graceful bow as though he had performed the most amazing trick in the history of stage magic, NiGHTs flew out. Elliot fell out after him, rubbing his head.

"You should have told me you were in a confined space!" he complained, "I almost got stuck in the wall!"

"I apologise for not being able to predict the dreams of a complete stranger who is psychic and possibly possessed by demons." said Claris.

"Its okay, I need the practice." said NiGHTs, spreading his arms out and spinning down the corridor in a corkscrew pattern. Will ducked out of the way, allowing NiGHTs to land inches away from Luykas and hover above him upside down, staring at him with large round eyes, "Nice dream. Is that noise supposed to be a monkey or a walrus?"

"Um... yes?" replied Luykas, taking a step back. He looked at Will as though he was a foreign tourist desperately trying to get someone to translate for him.

"This is NiGHTs." explained Will, "He's... he's NiGHTs."

"Er... hello. I'm Luykas."

"You're the psychic? Wow." said NiGHTs, tilting his head, "I bet you could do really impressive things in a dream. I mean, everyone can do cool stuff with the power of their minds in a dream but you can do cool stuff with the power of your mind even in the waking world, so you could do EXTRA cool stuff in a dream!"

"Didn't you say we were running out of time?" asked Claris, "Selph, remember..."

"Selph's been here?" asked NiGHTs, looking around, "No, don't answer. I can tell. Your Ideya is already very low. Especially your red Ideya. Nightmaren always go for the red Ideya first. Its what most people use to fight them off. It looks like it hasn't just been drained either. Its malfunctioning. Oh, I didn't mean to call you a coward!" he added suddenly, "I meant your red Ideya is low at the moment. Because it was drained. Not because you're a coward. Your mind isn't faulty either. Its just that the essence of your identity is, well, a little faulty. Also cowardly."

"What is Selph exactly?" asked Claris, desperately trying to get NiGHTs to stay on one track for more than thirty seconds, "You didn't really explain. You just said it was dangerous and it wasn't like the other Nightmaren."

"Like I said, it isn't even of this world." said NiGHTs, "It doesn't properly exist. It hasn't done since the creation of the current version of the world."

"The... current version?"

"In fact, its been several releases since Selph existed at all." said NiGHTs, "He was just an idea. An idea, not an Ideya. Well, I suppose he's a little like an Ideya, if you had a prototype Ideya that didn't work, and made the other ones stop working. But he's not, he's a Nightmaren. The first Nightmaren ever to exist. Long before Wizeman."

"Wizeman's a Nightmaren?" asked Claris.

"Pretty much." said NiGHTs, "If he was something completely different to a Nightmaren, we wouldn't be able to fight him. Selph, he's something different again."

"Can we fight him?"

"I don't know. Probably." said NiGHTs, "To be honest, I don't even know what Selph looks like. He went away a long time before I was created. We first-class Nightmaren were only created because Wizeman didn't have access to Selph any more. He didn't need us, back when Selph was there."

"The thing I saw looked like my brother." said Luykas.

"That wasn't him." said NiGHTs, "Like I said, this Nightmaren I've been following isn't that powerful. It was only unusual because it was new, it came from nowhere and it felt wrong. Wizeman doesn't create new Nightmaren very often, it usually takes him a while and he never creates faulty ones. Apart from me, I guess."

"It threw us out really easily."

"No, it took control of ME really easily." said Luykas, his head bowed, "It knew about me. It knew if I saw my brother, I would lose control. I have nightmares about my brother a lot. Nightmares that feel wrong. I think its been watching me for a long time."

"See? Its not even acting like a normal Nightmaren. They never stay in one place for that long." said NiGHTs, "Its broken. I didn't know why, but if its involved in something to do with Selph, it makes sense. Sometimes something in a nightmare gets touched by Selph, just slightly, and it starts going wrong. Much more powerful, but in the wrong way."

"I still don't get what Selph is." said Will.

"He's hard to explain in words that a visitor would understand." said NiGHTs, "He's... sort of like the Nightmaren that all the Nightmaren were made from. The rules about how nightmares work. He's called 'Selph' because he likes to find the dreamer's self, but not their real self, the part of them that takes over when they go 'out of character' in dreams, when their conscience switches off and they start breaking the rules about their identity. That's when nightmares get their worst. In a way, he IS the first nightmare. The others talk about him as though he was a God. Personally, I think he's just faulty."

"A Faulty God?" said Will, scratching his head.

"The problem with him was, he didn't change much from just being an actual nightmare. That's why he was trapped. Dreams are just the first ideas about things. They're the first inspirations. The bit before even the prototypes. A nightmare is just a prototype of something that doesn't work. So when all the dreams and nightmares got rolled back for the first time, Selph went with them."

"You like calling this thing faulty." Claris pointed out.

"It makes me less scared of it." admitted NiGHTs, "If this thing gets out into the world- or worse, into the waking world, it'll just overwrite everything with its own laws. The nightmares won't be just the prototypes any more, they'll be the real thing."

"A waking nightmare." said Luykas, shuddering.

"Don't lose control!" said NiGHTs.

"Stop scaring us then!" said Will.

"Sorry. Force of habit." said NiGHTs, "That, and there's no real way to dress up what I'm saying."

"Let's discuss how we're going to beat this thing." suggested Claris, "I think we should take out that smaller Nightmaren. It sounds like it's important to this Selph, so maybe he can't get free if the smaller one is destroyed."

"I don't want to fight my brother again." said Luykas. The dream was flickering and breaking up slightly into static. They could tell he was losing control. NiGHTs lay a hand on his shoulder and gave him one of this big, wide, unconvincingly innocent smiles of his. His white silk gloved hand radiated a faint aura, one hand red, the other yellow. Courage and hope.

"Its okay, we're not going to hurt your brother." said NiGHTs, "We're going to stop the thing that's rude enough to impersonate him."

"The last time there was something that looked like my brother but wasn't and I had to fight it, it turned out to be my brother."

"And people call me confusing!" commented NiGHTs, turning full circle in the air, "Okay, then we won't attack the Nightmaren until we're definitely sure its not your brother, won't become your brother and wasn't your brother in the past."

"Can you track him down right now?" asked Claris.

"He's not in the dream at the moment." said NiGHTs, "We'll have to lure him in. It'll be difficult. If we can make a big enough disturbance without actually doing anything that would make the dreamer lose control, it might just attract his attention."

"A big disturbance?" asked Luykas.

"Something big and impressive, but still under your control. Use your imagination." said NiGHTs, "Remember, its your dream. You can do what you like."

"I've never really been in control of my dreams."

"Just pretend its the outside world and you're a psychic."

"Um... that's not really how it works... and I don't think it would be good if it did..." he muttered..

"Just in theory, then, if there was something really big and impressive in here, what would it be?"

Luykas thought about this for all of thirty seconds. "How fast can you run?"

"I can fly."

The boy closed his eyes and frowned in concentration. A few seconds later, there was a hideous, deafening noise, a mixture of the roar of a beast and the sound of strained metal parts grating against each other. The noise was preceded by a second noise, like the ticking of a giant clockwork machine that was slowly winding up. Gradually, it became louder, the vibrations making the floor shake.


	4. Chapter 4

"What's happening?" asked Will. The noise made him jump, and now Claris was glaring at him in a way that was embarrassing him. He had been at this job long enough not to be afraid so easily, and yet the dreamscape always seemed to find something new.

"Ssh, I'm trying to remember what it looks like." whispered Luykas.

With another roar, loud enough to shake the air and almost knock NiGHTs off balance, it turned the corner and came hurtling towards them, a mouth half the size of its body spread wide open, displaying rows of sharp teeth. Two small slit eyes glared at them like twin lights on a paper shredder, no thought in its head except killing and eating everything in its path. Will could see two small pointed ears, a forked tail, four legs, leathery pinkish skin and a small yellow bird perched on what looked like a large button on its back. These observations gave him absolutely no clue as to what the creature was supposed to be.

"Just run!" yelled the psychic boy. Everyone took his advice.

Luykas punched a button on the elevator and they all crammed themselves inside. Roaring in frustration and rage, it attempted to chew a hole in the door, then swipe at it with its claws. By the time it had thought up a third way to attack the door, the lift car was already at the third floor. They piled out.

"It doesn't know how to use the elevators." said Luykas, "But sometimes it gets in them by accident. Or it might find the stairs. It'll go off to trash whatever else it can find first."

"What IS that thing?" demanded Will.

"Its an Ultimate Chimera."

"You have a really good imagination!" NiGHTs told him.

"Yes. Imagination." the boy stared into the distance for a moment, "Anyway, there's a safe room up ahead, for observing dangerous experiments and stuff. We can hide in there while it trashes everything."

They followed his lead, NiGHTs flying over his head occasionally as the jester looked out for any sign that the Nightmaren had appeared. Even from two floors up, they could hear the occasional faint roar, the scream of an unfortunate lab animal being devoured or the crash of a piece of equipment being destroyed. Luykas took them into a room, then up a set of stairs to the next floor. They emerged in a small foyer with a single door leading off from it. It was thick enough to be the door to a nuclear bunker and protected by a fiendish-looking security system. The boy spoke some random nonsensical words into the microphone and the door opened. They stepped inside and it closed and locked behind them. They were inside a much larger chamber, separated from the rest of the room by a shatter-proof glass window that took up the entire wall. On their side of the window was a row of seats, a few control panels and display terminals, a vending machine and a coffee machine. More machinery lined the rest of the room. In the middle was an operation table, except it was built to hold something much larger than a human. Above the table was what looked like something from a cheap sci-fi novel that would fire laser beams.

"Are you sure it can't get in here?" asked Will.

"Well, I guess it can. Eventually." admitted Luykas, "Don't worry, I know what to do if it corners us. The button on its back is an on/off switch. Someone just has to distract the bird."

"Any sign of the Nightmaren yet?"

NiGHTs shook his head, then went back to pulling faces at himself in the glass. The glass wasn't reflective but this didn't stop him. Claris and Will sat in silence, listening out for the first sign that the Chimera had found out where they were. The psychic boy sat cross-legged on one of the chairs, his eyes closed. It was taking all his effort to concentrate. Even now, the dreamscape was fading away slightly at the edges. NiGHTs had boosted his Ideya but it had been very low to start with. A mad scientist's laboratory was not the best place to keep your nerve.

Just as they began wondering whether they should just give up for now so Luykas could get some rest, they heard the now familiar roar, followed by the clockwork noise. Then, suddenly, the noise began to distort, as though it was running out of batteries while a demonic voice began counting down in time to it in a voice that sounded like it was coming from another dimension slightly out of synch with this one.

Luykas screamed. For a few seconds, he lost control of the dream. The room tilted as though a giant hand had picked it up and turned it upside down, then it began to ripple and dissolve into white noise. There was a flare of red and yellow light and the room stabilised again. The light was coming from NiGHTs. who hovered above him, his arms spread out, his eyes closed.

In front of him, sat on the table, was his brother. He was wired up to the machinery around him, his left arm replaced by a mechanical limb that looked like a weapon. He was simply staring, his expression as dead as the holes in a plug socket, half-heartedly swinging his legs back and forth.

He snapped his fingers and the glass shattered. Several wires lifted from the ground, wrenched themselves out of their wall fixtures and whipped towards NiGHTs, sparking electricity. The jester was taken by surprise, his concentration fixed on keeping Luykas stable. One of the wires knocked him off balance but he righted himself, evading the rest of the wires with the agility of a master acrobat. He darted through the hole in the glass towards the Nightmaren, weaving in and out of the wires that thrashed like the tentacles of an insane mechanical octopus. The laser on the ceiling swivelled around, following his path, and started humming as it built up power.

NiGHTs aimed for the control panels, hoping that there would be an obvious lever or button that would turn off the power to the machines the Nightmaren was wired to. Failing to find such a thing, he grabbed a box of scalpels, threw into the air and paralooped it, sending the scalpels flying in all directions. Several of them cut through the wires, sending up a shower of sparks, or flew at the Nightmaren, who jumped out of the way._ So he can be hurt by something,_ thought NiGHTs, _that's a good start. A_ couple of the scalpels struck the Nightmaren Where they hit, the image started breaking up into static.

As the dreamers watched the battle between NiGHTs and the Nightmaren, they kept an eye on Luykas. The jester couldn't keep him stable and fight at the same time, so it was their duty to look for any sign of danger. He was barely managing to control himself. Claris turned to look at him when the lift went 'ding'.

They had forgotten about the Ultimate Chimera. It was impossible to hear it coming, now that the Nightmaren had distorted all the sound in the area. Luykas had warned them that it sometimes managed to end up inside the elevators. It looked like now was one of those times.

"Aim for the switch!" yelled Luykas. Elliot summoned a basketball from nowhere – one of his specialities in dreams – and threw it at the Chimera's back. In a flurry of feathers, the bird darted out of the way, squawking indignantly at Elliot. The ball hit the Chimera exactly on the switch. There was a noise like a computer switching off, then the beast froze and collapsed to the floor, its legs giving way underneath it. The bird flew down to sit back on the switch but Will made a swipe for it. He chased it around the room, keeping it away from the switch, although he couldn't quite catch it.

The wires flew at NiGHTs, three of them aiming to hit him and electrocute him, the rest aiming to entangle him so that the laser could take aim. The laser had already missed him once, leaving a crater in the floor. NiGHTs moved out of the way of the wires and flew straight at the Nightmaren, throwing all of his energy into a drill dash. It was a dangerous move for the jester, who was low on power after giving most of it to Luykas. He had to hope that his earlier assessment was correct - the Nightmaren wasn't that strong, outside of its familiarity with its prey and its attachment to Selph.

His luck held out. He hit the Nightmaren square in the chest and threw it backwards, ripping it free from all the remaining wires. It screeched in frustration, its voice like a tape failing to rewind properly. It dropped to the floor and rolled out of the way, narrowly missing being impaled on the jagged edges of the hole in the glass pane. Picking itself up, it managed to jump out of the way of NiGHTs' second attack. Then something odd happened.

It stumbled back onto the crater left by the laser. Instead of just tripping over it, there was a crackle of static where its foot touched the crater and sank right through it. Its foot was now stuck in the floor. It looked down, surprised, then began trying to tug its leg free. NiGHTs wheeled around and prepared for another attack. Then he spotted something else moving towards them.

The bird had managed to re-activate the Ultimate Chimera. Unfortunately for the Nightmaren, the dreamers had managed to turn it around beforehand. Furious and embarrassed by its defeat as well as hungry, the Chimera was heading towards the closest edible-looking thing it could see – which was now the Nightmaren. Luykas' face was grim. He was firmly in control now. Nothing could stop the Chimera of his dreams, a perfect predator in an environment designed entirely to be its habitat.

"Wizeman!" screamed the Nightmaren, the look frozen on its face a parody of human horror. It tried even more frantically to free itself. As he cried his leader's name, all the lights in the building went off. When they came back on a few seconds later, Wizeman stood between them and the Nightmaren.


	5. Chapter 5

"Why do you disturb me?" Wizeman's voice was annoyed, "What have you done wrong? I trusted you not to fail me!"

"Wizeman, there have been complications!" he protested, "One of your Nightmaren attacked me! You told me you had forbidden the others from interfering on pain of annihilation!"

"That was not one of my Nightmaren, that was NiGHTs." said Wizeman, "I had warned you about him. I expected you to be able to defeat the idiotic thing in battle. Ah, but you are a flawed creation too! You are pathetic. I don't need flawed Nightmaren."

"But you do need Nightmaren who can channel Selph! I'm your only link to him! If you don't save my life..."

"Do you think I didn't make plans for the eventuality of your death? I made another pact with Selph, while you were away. You do not only act as a summoning vessel. You can act as a sacrifice."

"A sacrifice? You mean..."

"If you die, the energy released would also create a tear big enough to summon Selph. Dead or alive, you are still useful to me. I only kept you alive in the hope that you would possess the psychic. However, you are obviously not as capable as you claimed to be."

"This is in clear violation of our contract!"

"You should have read the small print."

"I did! You said that I would be given a path from the Prototype Realm to the world!"

"Death is a path from the Prototype Realm. Technically, you would still exist as part of the world, you would just be a dead part of it."

"I'm not sure that would hold in a court of law." Claris interjected.

"Hold your tongue, mortal! I shall consume your souls and destroy this psychic boy's mind once I am done with this incompetent fool!"

"You probably shouldn't stand in-between the incompetent fool and the Chimera like that." Will pointed out. Wizeman looked around, then floated out of the way. He looked around again, just in case the Chimera had decided to make a bee-line for the larger and potentially tastier Nightmare Lord. By the time he had turned his attention back to the doomed Nightmaren, he was gone.

His face was the last thing they saw as he disappeared through the floor. Except that it wasn't the floor any more, it was a strange, dark rift, with a deep crimson scar the shape of a fissure in the Earth as it was rent asunder in the fires of Armageddon on Judgement Day. The others stood well back, making sure they weren't stepping on the cracks, except for Luykas, who ran forwards. NiGHTs tried to pull him back but the boy dismissed him with a wave of his hand, which caused the light rigging to fall from the ceiling, almost crushing the jester beneath it. Luykas stared into the rift.

"There are people in there." he whispered, "People who look like me and my brother, except there's more than one of each, and they look all wrong. There are even weirder-looking people. Where is that place?"

"Its the Prototype Realm." said Wizeman, "The fool has gone back home. He's sealed the rift shut behind him. I didn't know he was powerful enough to do it on his own. He must have had help on the other side."

"So Selph can't come out any more?" asked NiGHTs.

"Don't count on it, my wayward child." said Wizeman, "The border between his world and ours is crumbling. The difference between prototype and dream has always been narrow. He will come to us first. Our world will change, NiGHTs, it will be warped beyond recognition, and the waking world with it."

"People have been prophesying the end of the world for millennia and it never happens." said Claris, "I think you're just being a bad loser."

"You do, hm? We'll have to wait and see." said Wizeman, "Now, Luykas? I suppose you're wondering why there are so many prototype versions of you and your brother down there. Do you know what else has prototypes? Lab experiments. And your brother was a lab experiment, wasn't he? Maybe they tried a few things that failed. Nobody gets it right first time. What you're seeing is probably all the experiments your brother was subjected to. As for why you're down there... it probably some awful suppressed memory. Are you sure you weren't a lab experiment too?"

"Luykas, don't let him goad you! Stay in control!" yelled Claris.

"I suppose the best way to find out would be to go there and ask them. Or bring them here." said Wizeman, "Either way would mean opening the portal again. I think you can do that. You're already linked to it enough."

"Don't listen! He's a master of deception! Didn't you hear what he did to the Nightmaren?" yelled NiGHTs.

Luykas looked around at them, unsure.

"Your Ideya's weakening, isn't it? You've become uncertain. You'll have to do something, or you'll be possessed," said Wizeman, "Then I'll make you open the gate anyway. Maybe you should just try and destroy me. You must be really angry with me by now."

The boy looked at NiGHTs. He clutched his head as though he was in pain. Then he threw his arms back and stared at the sky. His eyes were glowing yellow.

Then they all felt a sudden lurch that threw them back into the waking world. They opened their eyes to discover that they were in a vast desert.

"What the...?" muttered Claris, "Will, is this your dream?"

"Its not a dream. Look, I'm really sorry. I had to use it. His eyes went a funny colour, then he went straight through my mind-shield."

She groaned and sat up. Everything hurt.

"There was a bit of a drop, my accuracy isn't great in an emergency." added Ness, "There's a bit of a hole in your wall as well. Helen might be in a bad mood when we get home. Helen and Will aren't here, by the way, I could only take the four of us."

"What the HELL is a BIT of a hole in a wall? Where are we? Is anything on fire this time?"

He shook his head, "I Brainshocked him just in time. He was going to do worse than set something on fire. What happened in there? His eyes hardly ever go yellow!"

"It would take a long time to explain," said Claris, "But we sorted the worst of it. We'll still need to protect him and we need to keep an eye on the other psychics too. It'll be easier now. Wizeman can't do what he's planning to do any more. Also, NiGHTs knows what's going on, so he can fight Wizeman."

"I have no idea what you're on about, but if you're going to fight something evil, count me in."

"The best thing you can do is carry on protecting your friend." said Claris, "He's a lot stronger than he looks – he kept us alive through the entire battle – but Wizeman was preying on his weaknesses. He'll be a lot stronger if he gets counselling to work on some of his issues."

"Counsellors don't like seeing clients who set fire to their offices with their minds every time you hit a sensitive spot, not matter how much you pay them."

"You have a point." said Claris, looking down at Luykas' unconscious form, "Say... Johannes... this question might sound weird, but do you know if there are any clones of Luykas or his brother?"

"Clones? I don't think so. His brother was a victim of some kind of unethical experiment but it involved cybernetics, not genetics. Why do you ask?"

"It doesn't matter. I wouldn't mention it to him, the same thing will probably happen again."

"I'm thirsty. Can we go now?" asked Elliot.

"Sure." Ness shrugged, "But... really, Helen is probably going to kill me."

"Just how big was this 'bit of a hole in the wall' again?"

–

_Train looked up._

_Several people were staring down at him. One was like him but with permanent wide, staring eyes, like he was a particularly creepy doll and they were painted on, the other was like him but naked, yet another was like the dreamer he had been visiting. Two were much taller, one with wings, one dressed in a grey suit that covered him, two were stranger entities still, patterns on the walls and floor._

"_Clayman. Rope Snake. Snow Bunny." he said. They didn't move. They were watching him as though he was the scene of an accident._

"_Train." pronounced the tall one with wings. The tone in his voice said that he had done something wrong. It was a tone he rarely used. _

"_I'm sorry, Tent Person." he said, "I had no idea any of this would happen. Will you forgive me?"_

"_I forgive you." he said, "You're people. I can't forgive Selph."_

"_I thought he could be trusted. He is one of us. He's here for the same reason as us."_

"_We were judged wrongly. He wasn't. Besides, he's a danger to us, like the floors that you can sink into. If there are those floors in the area, you go to a different area were there aren't any. We don't make deals with Selph from now on."_

"_What if he comes after us?"_

"_Then we fight him." said Tent Person. The grey man took a gun from the belt of his suit and examined it as if it was just another piece of equipment that may or may not be on the correct setting._

"_... Train's okay?" asked Rope Snake, "He's people?"_

"_That's right."_

"_We can play?"_

"_Don't get into any more trouble, or I'll find a hole and leave you all dangling halfway inside."_

"_Talking of holes, we found a wall you can walk through! There's all weird stuff inside! Its like the rest of the house, except its all upside down!"_

"_Its probably not been built properly. Don't let it fall on you!"_

_Tent Person watched the children run off to play. They weren't children in terms of years in the world – Snow Bunny had been there the longest – but they never aged or changed their habits. Time didn't work. Sometimes space didn't work either. He wondered what it was like in the world outside, where time and space worked a lot better, because they had been finished. Train had been there – sort of – but in short order, he would have forgotten. It would be a distant memory, maybe just a fancy, and he wouldn't be able to work out which order it had happened in relative to all the other weird things he saw and did. _

_There was a word for that, in the world outside. He vaguely remembered hearing Selph use the word, last time they met. It was called a dream._


End file.
